Book Review | Book Chatter

IT
By Stephen King
Read by: Steven Weber
(Penguin Audio, 44 hours, May 2010)

The Short of It:

Entertainment at its best! Gripping with moments of terror but at its heart, a story about friendship and the battle of good over evil.

The Rest of It:

I first read IT years ago. And by “years ago” I mean…maybe 24 years. That’s a lot of years! I remember loving it to pieces. I’d stay up all night to read it and let me tell you, it was a full immersion experience. Once you opened the book, you couldn’t help but fall right into the story.

Recently, I decided to re-read it as part of the IT Along which was a read-along hosted by really cool (and fun) people. I can’t even begin to tell you how much fun I had participating. The Twitter conversations (#ITAlong) were a hoot. The clown noses and the pictures that followed were too much. Seriously, clown noses?? I laughed and then I got really creeped out.

The point of all of this?? To distract the hell out of you. Why? Because the book can be terrifying. Well, the images that King paints are terrifying on their own but Steven Weber, the guy from the TV show Wings, reads for the audio version and even though I had read the book and experienced its horror once before, Weber took it to a whole new level. It was like IT on crack.

The story takes place in the fictional town of Derry, Maine during the late 1950’s. A shape-shifter comes to life and consumes the small children of Derry. One by one the children disappear. Lured by the promise of balloons and sweets, Pennywise grabs them, does terrible things to them and then drags the remains down under the streets of Derry, via the gutters, drains, or whatever else he can find. His constant chant of “They all float down here!” is a reminder that for this town, hope hangs by a very thin thread.

One day, little Georgie Denbrough takes his paper boat out for a run but when it’s swept into a storm drain, Pennywise the clown pulls him down into the sewer and murders him. George’s older brother Bill, is never the same but when he and his group of rag-tag friends figure out what is really going on, they take matters into their own hands.

Many of you have said that you will not step foot near this book because you are totally freaked out by clowns or don’t want to drink the horror Kool-Aid that King is serving up but at the end of the day, the guy can tell a story and it would be a shame if you overlooked this book because of that.

Due to the age of the characters, and the fact that they band together, I was often reminded of the movie Stand By Me, which was based on a novella King had written called The Body some years prior. The innocence of children and the sweetness of their friendship is what makes this novel special to me.

If you decide to give it a go, the audio was brilliantly done but it’s long (44 hours long) and it is hard to work other books into the mix while listening to it. I don’t recall that being a problem with the print version. Maybe because in print, you could easily put it down and come back to it. On audio though, I FEARED losing my place on my iPod as it happened to me twice and I could not for the life of me figure out where I was in the story when it happened.

Anyway, give it a go. You won’t be sorry.

Source: Borrowed
Disclosure: This post does not contain Indiebound affiliate links because they don’t have it listed! I guess it’s too old.

Blackberry Winter
By Sarah Jio
(Plume, Paperback, 9780452298385, September 2012, 320pp.)

The Short of It:

Short, sweet story with a little bit of mystery thrown in.

The Rest of It:

Claire Aldridge has suffered a terrible loss and although a year has passed, she is struggling to accept what cannot be changed, and in the process, realizes that her marriage to Ethan might very well be over. As she delves into her work as a newspaper reporter, mostly to numb herself against the pain, she stumbles across a story from the 1930’s. A story about a young mother by the name of Vera Ray, and her missing three-year-old son, Daniel who disappeared during a blackberry winter. Suspicious over why he was never found, Claire digs deeper, hoping for a story but also curious over what really happened to the little boy. While searching clues, she comes across some similarities to her own life that she finds impossible to ignore.

Out of the three Jio books I’ve read thus far, this was probably the most predictable story of the three. It was too sweet for me in places and the dialogue seemed a tad artificial, but after just a few chapters I was reeled in. Jio’s ability to take a reader back and forth through time is effortless. So much so, that you tend to overlook the fact that there are far too many coincidences in the story to be plausible.

As for the characters, Claire drove me batty. Her insecurities get the best of her and seeing her vacillate between devoted wife and “not so devoted wife” became tiring after a while. I wanted to know more about Ethan, her husband and the mysterious Vera Ray. Whenever a story is interwoven with a story from the past, I am almost always more interested in the story from the past. That was the case here.

Jio’s knack for creating stories that transcend time is what makes her so popular with her readers. However, with this being the third book following the same format, I’d like to see her go in a different direction for her next book. I keep coming back because no matter how “pat” an ending may seem or how many coincidences there may be, I still find myself getting swept up in the story, and you can’t say that with too many books these days.

Overall, a quick read to lose yourself in while the kids run amok around you.

Source: Sent to me by the publisher via Edelweiss.
Disclosure: This post contains Indiebound affiliate links.

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